Starting on Labor Day morning -- when we're more likely than normal to sleep in -- Channel 12 will push its morning news back to 4:30 a.m.
The change fits into the national trend, with the mornings a rare growth area for local TV newscasts in markets around the country.
Channel 6 already starts its weekday morning newscasts at 4:30 a.m. It would be a surprise if Channel 4 didn't follow.
Turning to radio for TV people: Channel 6 has turned to two non-TV faces as it completes the staff list for its new "Real Milwaukee" program, launching in the 9 a.m. weekday slot a week from today.
Joining the show as a co-host will be former WMCS-AM (1290) talker Cassandra McShepard. Becoming the "rover" for the new show is Tony Clark, better known to listeners of WXSS-FM (103.7) as Tony Zamboni.
The other co-hosts of the non-news program will be veterans of the Fox station's news staff, Katrina Cravy, Rob Haswell and Nicole Koglin.
The new hires are a smart way to broaden the show from a bunch of familiar faces from the Fox station's news side.
Reaching a statewide audience: Channel 12 has offered some Nielsen numbers showing the reach of last week's Republican gubernatorial debate between Scott Walker and Mark Neumann.
Nielsen numbers compiled by the ABC station yielded an estimate of a statewide audience of about 200,000. The debate aired in Milwaukee on Channels 10 and 12, and on stations in Green Bay, Wausau, Madison, Eau Claire and La Crosse.
The Milwaukee audience was estimated at about 78,000 adults.
Channel 12 plans two more commercial-free debates in October for candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate.
Shuffling the weekend schedule at WUWM: The Saturday lineup at WUWM-FM (89.7) changes this weekend.
The biggest change is the addition of NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me" quiz show at 10 a.m. That means "Marketplace Money" will move to 1 p.m. Saturdays.
"Lake Effect Weekend," a best-of show, will air at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, replacing "Saturday at the Cafe" on Saturdays and "American Routes" on Sundays.
On TV: After a week of incredible speculation, ABC has released the celebs competing in this fall's "Dancing with the Stars." They are: Brandy, Michael Bolton, Margaret Cho, David Hasselhoff, Rick Fox, Jennifer Grey, Florence Henderson, Kyle Massey, Bristol Palin, Audrina Patridge, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, and Kurt Warner.
- The overnight numbers show the Sunday's Emmy audience of some 13.5 million was up slightly over last year's 13.3 million, according to Nielsen numbers. Last year's Emmys aired in September, when there was more competition, including an NFL game.
- You're viewing may be disrupted tonight when the president talks about Iraq in an Oval Office speech starting at 7 p.m. It's expected to push prime-time programming back about 15 minutes, so you should check to see if the speech is built into your DVR scheduling.
- If you're counting down to the Nov. 8 TBS debut of Conan O'Brien, he's made it easy at his revamped website with a countdown clock.
Jack Horkheimer's farewell: Public TV "Star Gazer" Jack Horkheimer, died earlier this month at the age of 72. Horkheimer, who was born in Randolph, Wis., began his career as a TV astronomer back in the 1970s.
Here's his final five-minute look skyward, which takes us into the Labor Day weekend:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
